Earlier this week, news broke that the Trump administration had quietly removed the Pride flag that once waved over the Stonewall National Monument in New York’s West Village. Several New York City and State elected officials condemned the flag’s removal, and many gathered to reinstate it on Thursday afternoon.
Gay City News first reported on the flag’s removal on Monday, with the removal likely happening over the weekend. A report in amNewYork quoted Tim Sutton, a local resident, who said he witnessed the removal on Friday, February 6, at around 10am. At the time Sutton didn’t realize what was going on, telling the paper, “I’m standing right here and I think, ‘What are they doing?’ I thought, well, that’s strange. I’ve never seen them lowering anything before. It’s an insult.”
The Stonewall National Monument is the first national monument in the US dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights and history, having been designated in 2016. It encompasses Christopher Park, where the flagpole is, and the Stonewall Inn, where protestors called for change in June 1969 via an uprising after a police raid on the bar. That action has often been considered the catalyst for the LGBTQ+ rights movement, with Stonewall becoming synonymous with the struggle.
The amNewYork article also showed footage captured on Wednesday of a National Park Service (NPS) employee attempting to raise a US flag on the flagpole. After noticing that journalist Dean Moses was recording her actions, the employee threatened Moses and told him to stop recording, before calling her boss to say that she would not raise the flag because someone was recording her doing so. (A US flag has since been raised on the flagpole.)
Several elected officials have since issued statements against the removal via social media, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, city councilman Chi Ossé, and New York State senator Erik Bottcher.
On X, Mamdani said, “I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument. New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history. Our city has a duty not just to honor this legacy, but to live up to it. I will always fight for a New York City that invests in our LGBTQ+ community, defends their dignity, and protects every one of our neighbors—without exception.”
Bottcher and Holyman-Sigal were two signatories to a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and NPS acting director Jessica Bowron. Calling the Pride flag’s removal an act of “erasure,” the letter calls for the flag’s immediate restoration.
“When the Pride flag comes down at Stonewall,” the letter reads, “it doesn’t land as a routine policy choice. It lands as a warning. It tells LGBTQ+ Americans that their dignity is conditional and that even the most iconic symbol of their struggle can be stripped away.”
The flag’s removal comes after a memo from the Trump administration issued on January 21 over “non-agency” flags at NPS sites. In a statement to the New York Times, the NPS said that “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on N.P.S.-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.” Any changes, including the Pride flag’s removal, the statement added, “are made to ensure consistency with that guidance.”
The removal comes at a time when the Trump administration has continued its crackdown on national monuments, including Stonewall. Last February, the Trump administration removed the word “transgender” from the website for the Stonewall National Monument, which led to a protest calling for the restoration of the importance of trans activists to the history of Stonewall.
Last month, the National Park Service removed an exhibit from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia that discussed slavery at the President’s House Site, where George Washington and John Adams lived during their presidencies. That removal is currently the subject of a lawsuit to restore the exhibit, which has been endorsed by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
New York City officials, however, have decided not to wait for the administration to restore the Pride flag on its own or to file a suit. On Thursday at 4pm, they gathered, along with hundreds of supporters, at the Stonewall National Monument to raise the flag. In front of the flagpole with the US flag, they raised a smaller flagpole containing the Pride flag, at which point the crowd cheered.
